Saving Sophie: A Novel (6 page)

He stood and let the vast sea reel him closer
. Alina, I’m so lost,
he said to himself.
I’ve made such a mess of things. I’m falling apart, honey. Sometimes it’s even hard for me to take a breath.

The water echoed
, Come join me.

In numbing obedience, he walked slowly into the shallows and watched the waves softly lap over his sandals and splash against his knees.
Don’t you see, Alina, I’m not as strong as you thought I was. I was only strong because of you. Can’t you help me?

The sudden, brash call of a seagull raised his eyes to the night sky. He took a deep breath and nodded
.
He looked back at the black water and gave it a swift kick. “I know, I know. Get a grip, Jack. There’s a job to do.”

Walking back to the motel, he took determined steps.
I can’t continue to wallow in this sadness. It doesn’t do any of us any good. Have faith in me, Alina, I made you a promise and I won’t let you down. I’ve worked out a plan and I’m going to see it through. I’m sure word will come soon. I’m going to get her back, sweetheart, I promise you.

N
INE

L
IAM TAGGART WALKED UP
the steps of his fiancée’s three-story brownstone in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago, put his key in the lock, and entered the foyer. He shook the snow from his coat and hat and brushed the slush from the cuffs of his trousers.

“Liam, you’re getting snow all over my floor,” Catherine said as she hurried to meet him in the hall. “Take your shoes off.”

“I’m sorry. It’s really coming down out there. You should see the Drive.”

“I know. I just got in myself.” She took his coat and hung it on the foyer rack. Almost as tall as Liam, Catherine Lockhart brushed her blond hair back from her face and leaned over to give him a kiss. She was comfortably dressed in her jeans and a blue cable-knit sweater.

“I’ll clean it up,” Liam said. “I don’t want your aunt Edna getting mad at me.”

Catherine handed him a towel. “I talked to Aunt Edna today. She says it’s eighty-four degrees in West Palm.”

“Oh, that’s unkind. Tell her to come home, we’ll trade places.”

“I don’t think she’s ever coming back. She loves it down there. She said she wants to give me this house.”

“Whoa. That’s quite a gift.”

She shook her head. “I can’t accept it. It’s worth a million dollars or more. I told her that.”

Liam finished wiping the floor and carried the towel back to the laundry room. “And what did she say?”

“She said it would be a good place to raise my family.”

Liam raised his eyebrows. “Does she know something I don’t know?”

“Very funny.” Catherine turned and walked to the refrigerator and took out two beers. “She says I’m not getting any younger.” Catherine handed a bottle to Liam. “She’s right, you know. Next month I’ll be thirty-seven. It’s getting late to start a family.”

“Is that a proposal?”

“Is that what you think?” Catherine put her hands on her hips. “Let me tell you, I’d be a lot more romantic than that if
I
were going to propose. When the time is right, I want it done with ceremony. Pomp and circumstance. Not some off-the-cuff remark.”

“Excuse me. I’ll remember that when the time is right.”

She turned and walked back to the kitchen, repeating
when the time is right
under her breath.

“Cat? Is something wrong?”

“No.”

“Cat?”

“Don’t worry about it. Tell me about your day.”

“Extraordinary. You’ll never guess who came to see me today.”

She shrugged. “I give up.”

“Walter Jenkins, of all people. He called for an appointment and came right over before I could tell him no. He wants to hire me.”

“I hope you told him to get lost.”

Liam smiled and bit his bottom lip. “I didn’t. I listened to his story and it was a whopper.”

“Another problem with one of his precious insurance clients?”

Still smiling, Liam opened his eyes widely and shook his head. “Nope. A disaster of nuclear proportions. He told me I could share it with you; he thinks he may want to hire you as well.”

Catherine pursed her lips. “Hire me? The unprincipled bastard fired me last year and then tried to bribe me to drop my client.” She put her hands on her hips. “I wouldn’t work for him under any circumstances. Not if he ran the last law firm in Chicago.”

Liam smiled. “He regrets his conduct.”

“Only because it now suits his convenience. He wants to hire my boyfriend. Are you seriously going to take this assignment? He’s a pompous, self-absorbed, unethical bastard.”

“Calm down. I told him I’d think about it and discuss it with you. If you said it would make you uncomfortable, I’d have to decline. He was okay with that. That’s why he told me that it was all right to disclose the case to you, but you’d have to swear an oath of secrecy.” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s a whopper, Cat. He’ll give me a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer.”

Catherine whistled. “Fifty grand from Mr. Tightwad?”

Liam took a seat in the overstuffed chair by the fireplace. Catherine curled up on the corner of the couch and tucked her feet under her like a young girl. Liam smiled lovingly at her. Her ability to enchant him had been unwavering for twenty years.

“Regale me,” she said.

Liam repeated the information Jenkins had laid out earlier in the day.

“And he wants you to find Sommers?” Catherine said.

“He wants me to find the money. He’s not sure Sommers has it.”

“I barely knew Sommers when I was at the firm. I remember him as a sad and troubled man, but not the kind who would steal eighty million dollars.”

“Eighty-eight,” Liam corrected. “What do you know about Sommers?”

“Not much. He was a transactional attorney who handled purchases and sales of businesses: asset purchases, stock purchases, mergers, acquisitions. He was kind of lanky, not bad looking, with a lot of brown hair. A nice guy. Quiet. Unassuming. Everyone seemed to get along with him. He was married to a very sweet woman. She was Middle Eastern, I think. He was completely devoted to her. They had one child, a cute little girl. A couple of years ago, his wife contracted a fatal illness that took her very rapidly. He was devastated.”

Liam nodded his head slowly. “I can see why you say he was sad and troubled.”

“There was more. A custody dispute with his wife’s parents or something. I really don’t know the details. That was about the time I left the firm.”

“So, what do you think?” Liam said. “About the assignment?”

“It’s a whopper, all right. And I’m not going to tell you to pass up a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer, but what makes him want to involve me?”

“Unless the money turns up immediately, he’s sure that Kelsen will file suit. He needs a good lawyer.”

“He has a firm full of lawyers, good ones. And his malpractice insurance company will provide lawyers.”

“He’s got to have an independent lawyer. He can’t assign any lawyers from his firm when they could all wind up being defendants in a suit for the deficiency. He has to have private counsel in addition to the insurance lawyers. He told me that you’re the best attorney he knows.” Liam spread his hands. “He thinks it’s logical to have us work together, like we did with Ben Solomon. He was really impressed.”

“Yeah, he was so impressed, he fired me.”

“Seriously, he spent several minutes reminiscing about Ben’s case. He stands there, punctuating with his index finger, and says, ‘She takes up the case of an old man, a pensioner, with no money, and sues the wealthiest man in Chicago. Not only does she sue him, but she accuses him of being a Nazi. A Nazi, for chrissake.’ Then he walks around the room shaking his head. ‘I thought she was nuts. Elliot Rosenzweig, a Nazi? He’s the biggest Jewish benefactor in the city. The lawsuit almost puts me out of business. I beg her to drop it. I even offer her a financial motivation, but she tells me to stuff it and walks out. Then she proceeds to litigate the case on her own, out of her house. With your help, naturally. Jesus, Liam, that’s got to be the best lawyering Chicago’s ever seen.’”

Catherine smiles. “Financial motivation. That’s funny. Most of us would call it a bribe. What about this Loan Services, Co.? What did they find out?”

“It’s a Delaware corporation owned entirely by a man named Robert Hudson and formed seven weeks ago. Victor Kelsen says he never heard of it. Or anyone named Hudson. It’s probably a shell company formed to accomplish the theft.”

“Will Jenkins hire you even if I refuse to accept his offer?”

Liam nodded. “He said he would understand if you didn’t want to represent him, but he would hire me anyway.”

“Then tell him I said, ‘Piss off.’”

T
EN

A
NOTHER AFTERNOON AND ANOTHER
check of his secret e-mail address results in further disappointment for Sommers. Days come and days go and still there is no word. No new messages. He posts,
How are the plans progressing? When can I expect to hear something? I am anxiously awaiting your response.
He clicks
SEND
and stares at the computer screen. He commands the screen to answer him, but it doesn’t respond.

His entire life is on hold. The inactivity is becoming insufferable. Sommers closes his computer and walks slowly back to the Coral Reef.
I can’t face another afternoon in this motel room,
he thinks
. I’ve got to get out. I got to do something or I’ll go mad.

A page in a Hawaii travel brochure provides a suggestion: “Take a Scenic Drive to Oahu’s Friendly North Shore.” A picture of a restaurant looks appealing. It’s a long ride, but Sommers thinks it might take his mind off his gridlock.

With the sunroof open and the windows down, Sommers heads west on Interstate H1, past Pearl Harbor, Hickam Field, and Aloha Stadium. It is the archetypal Hawaiian day with temperatures in the mideighties. Trade winds carry a mélange of tropical fragrances through the open windows.

He motors north onto H2 toward Wahiawa, the North Shore, and the travel brochure’s destination: the artsy town of Hale’iwa. He glides past pineapple plantations and sugarcane fields, but his mind predictably wanders back to Alina, Sophie, and happier times.

He had just walked in the door and Alina was calling to him from the living room. “Jack,” she said excitedly, “Sophie has something special to show you.” She took his hand and pointed to Sophie, who sat poised at the piano. The little four-year-old, a pink ribbon tied in her blond curls, sat on a booster seat that Alina had strapped to the piano bench. A big smile stretched across Sophie’s face in anticipation.

Alina nodded to Sophie. Sophie stretched her fingers the way she had seen her mother do so many times and lit into a lively rondo. She attacked the keys with astonishing maturity. Jack clapped loudly and urged her to repeat the selection. And then again. “How can a four-year-old play that well?” he said.

Sophie giggled.

“She’s special, Jack,” Alina whispered to him. “I know you’ll say I’m biased, but I’ve been around the other kids. Sophie has extraordinary talent. Someday she’ll change the world.”

Jack laughed. “Alina, she’s only four.”

“You mark my words; with Sophie, the sky’s the limit.”

Turning onto Highway 99 and lost in his memories, Jack’s reverie was shattered by the lights of a highway patrol car. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach and sweat beaded on the band of his panama hat.

He checked his speed. Seventy-three.
Damn. What a fool I am
.
This is the last thing I need. What if this cop figures out I’m not Eugene? What if there’s an interstate warrant. If he arrests me, I’ll have come all this way only to fail again. All because of a damn speeding ticket.

The uniformed officer stepped out of his squad car and slowly walked up behind the Acura. He looked at the
LICENSE APPLIED FOR
sticker in the back window.

“May I see your license and registration, please?”

With a shaking hand, Sommers reached into his wallet, took out the driver’s license, and handed it to the patrolman with a copy of the receipt for his new vehicle registration. He thought the beating of his heart would break his ribs.

“Was I speeding, Officer?”

“Oh, yeah. I clocked you at seventy-two in a fifty-five.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to my speed.” Sommers hoped the officer would just write the ticket and not investigate beyond the plates.

The patrolman carefully looked over the interior of the car. “Visiting from Kentucky, Mr. Wilson?”

“Actually, I’m here for an extended time, doing work for a client.” He swallowed hard, fearing the worst—a trip to the police station.

The officer shook his head and grinned. “I know it’s pretty quiet out here today, Mr. Wilson, but you never know, one of these farmers’ll drive out of a little gravel road. You wouldn’t see ’em until it was too late. Take it easy, huh?” The officer handed back the license and registration. “Have a nice day.”

Sommers was flabbergasted. “You’re giving me a warning? You’re not going to give me a ticket?”

“Not unless you want one.” The officer tipped the brim of his cap and turned back to his car. “We’ll chalk it up to the aloha spirit.”

“Thank you very much,” Sommers called after him.

The officer smiled and nodded.

Sommers, his heart still beating loudly, sat in his car and waved as the officer drove past him. “I’m sorry, Alina. It won’t happen again.”

He drove slowly the rest of the way to Hale’iwa and pulled into the parking lot of McDuffy’s-by-the-Sea, a rustic wooden restaurant with a large outdoor patio, sheltered by two banyan trees. Sommers walked straight past the outdoor tables, up the steps, and directly to the bar. Sitting on a stool, he ordered a double and drank it quickly. He took deep breaths.

“You okay?” the bartender said.

“Now I am.”

Wooden blades of the overhead fans circulated the heavy sea air. Sommers ordered another drink. He was beginning to relax.